Rent: stage vs screen

Chris Columbus's 2005 film of Rent brought back six of the eight original Broadway principals, including Anthony Rapp, Adam Pascal, Jesse L. Martin, and Idina Menzel, with Rosario Dawson and Tracie Thoms in the other two roles. It adapts Jonathan Larson's rock musical, which opened on Broadway in 1996 and is loosely based on Puccini's opera La boheme. The film is close to the show but not identical. These are the main differences.

Stage

Broadway musical (1996)

Screen

Rent (2005), directed by Chris Columbus

1. The film opens with "Seasons of Love"

On stage, the company lines up to sing "Seasons of Love" at the start of Act Two. In the film, the eight friends sing it at the very start, on an empty stage in front of an empty house, and a second version, "Seasons of Love B," plays as they return home on New Year's Day. That puts the show's best-known song in the first minutes instead of in the middle of the evening.

2. Two of the eight leads are recast

Daphne Rubin-Vega, the original Mimi, was pregnant during casting and filming, so Rosario Dawson played Mimi. Fredi Walker, the original Joanne, has said she was not offered the film role because of her age, and Tracie Thoms took it. Thoms later played Joanne on Broadway in 2008. The other six original principals reprised their roles.

3. The year is pinned to 1989 and 1990

The stage show is set in New York's East Village under the shadow of AIDS but never names the year. The film is specific: it opens on Christmas Eve 1989 and ends on Christmas Eve 1990. That gives Mark's year of filming his friends a clear start and finish, and it places the story squarely in the years when Larson began writing the show.

4. April's death is left unclear

On stage, Mark tells the audience that Roger's girlfriend April killed herself in the bathroom after learning she and Roger were HIV positive, and Roger learned his own status from her note. The film shows April reading a doctor's report that she is HIV positive and says she has died, but not how. Columbus did film a scene of April in a bathtub with her wrists cut, then removed it because he felt it was too much.

5. "Goodbye Love" loses its second half

In both versions the friends turn on each other after Angel's funeral in "Goodbye Love." On stage, the song goes on: Roger, unable to face Mimi's declining health, argues with Mark and storms off, and Mimi, who has overheard, agrees to go to rehab, which Benny pays for. Columbus filmed the whole number but cut its second half as an emotional overload, and the film places Roger and Mimi's breakup earlier, with "Without You."

6. Some songs become dialogue, and "Love Heals" is added

The film turns some numbers into spoken dialogue and cuts others. Its 28-track soundtrack has no "Christmas Bells," "Contact," "Happy New Year," or the "Voice Mail" songs, and Mark's "Halloween" is listed as a deleted scene. In the other direction, "Love Heals," a Jonathan Larson song never used in the Broadway production, was recorded for the film and released as a bonus track on the soundtrack.

7. The ending stays close, with a different last image

Both versions end on Christmas Eve, a year after the opening, with Mimi appearing to die, then waking to say Angel sent her back, and the friends singing "no day but today." The film plays that moment over the first screening of Mark's documentary. The stage finale's tableau, with Angel stepping back into the line, was filmed as an alternate ending, but Columbus dropped it so viewers would not think Angel was alive again.

8. A cooler reception than the stage show

The stage musical won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the Tony Award for Best Musical. The film's reviews were mixed: Roger Ebert praised the performances but said it does not work without knowing the stage version, and Variety questioned casting older original cast members. It earned about $31.7 million worldwide on a $40 million budget.

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